It is known in the art of harvesting farm produce that forage, such as hay, grass and alfalfa, have a high moisture content and must be dried before storage to effectively preserve the forage. Dried forage is easier to handle, and has a longer storage life than moist forage. Moist forage is susceptible to mold growth which thereby destroys the forage.
The traditional method for processing forage is to cut the forage when it has reached the bud stage or in early blossom. The forage is then allowed to dry in the sun as a loose mass in the field. The forage is then tedded, raked into windrows and turned so that the sun can dry the remaining material that remained on the ground. If the forage is not sufficiently dry it must also be teddeded a second time, or spread out on the ground again and allowed to dry further. The forage is then raked and windrowed again. Later the forage is baled either into square or large round bales. This process can take up to five days to complete, and may be compromised due to environmental effects such as rain. The long drying period causes the forage to lose some of its nutrients. This method also requires many passes of equipments throughout the process. This is inefficient as many steps are involved, the sun drying is a slow process, and weather is unpredictable.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,754,977 discloses a drying facility that involves baled long strand hay. The baled hay is separated to form a loose mass and fed into a drying facility. However, baling and then separating is undesirable as these additional steps are inefficient, increase waste and reduce the nutritional content compromising the forage quality.
By transporting freshly cut forage to a drying facility the required drying time can be greatly reduce and more of the nutrients can be retained within the forage. However, there lacks an efficient system for transporting moist fresh cut forage without first baling the forage.
It is therefore desired to cut and load forage for transportation without the need for sun drying or baling.
It is further desired to rapidly dry fresh cut forage to a desired moisture content to retain more nutrients.